


Dried Blood, Dead Love, Dark Thoughts

by Ahatmadeofcheese



Series: Long, Tattered Shadows [1]
Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Conversations, Depressing, F/M, Heavy Angst, Interrogation, Non-Consensual Touching, Not Happy, One Shot, Padmé Amidala Lives, Psychological Torture, Sad Ending, Suitless Darth Vader
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:20:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28231569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ahatmadeofcheese/pseuds/Ahatmadeofcheese
Summary: Her head pounds and she tastes blood at the back of her throat. With effort, her eyes open and reveal a fuzzy picture from her nightmares. She’s in a crumbling room, tied to a rickety wooden chair. There’s no door in the doorway, instead a dark rectangle interrupting the cracked stucco walls and swallowing the far ends of several dusty floorboards.  This isn’t what scares her. Few things scare Padmé Amidala, and it’ll take more than some synthetic rope biting into her wrists and a couple of spiders.It will not take more than the sick yellow eyes that are focused upon her.
Relationships: Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/Darth Vader
Series: Long, Tattered Shadows [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2085249
Comments: 12
Kudos: 40





	Dried Blood, Dead Love, Dark Thoughts

**Author's Note:**

> Holy shit I didn’t want this to be so dark. Well, here you are. I wrote this to help me combat writers block and decided to publish it for S&G. The themes and writing are a lot darker than my usual writing. 
> 
> I wouldn’t say that the torture contained herein is graphic or even really a main plot point, it’s more of a super depressing psychological mindfuck for Padmé. Vader is delusional. Oh, and he touches her inappropriately and without consent. Tread carefully, friends.

Her head pounds and she tastes blood at the back of her throat. With effort, her eyes open and reveal a fuzzy picture from her nightmares. She’s in a crumbling room, tied to a rickety wooden chair. There’s no door in the doorway, instead a dark rectangle interrupting the cracked stucco walls and swallowing the far ends of several dusty floorboards. This isn’t what scares her. Few things scare Padmé Amidala, and it’ll take more than some synthetic rope biting into her wrists and a couple of spiders.

It will not take more than the sick yellow eyes that are focused upon her. The sick yellow eyes that would’ve been the last thing she ever saw. The sick yellow eyes set into the face of a man she once loved. He’s gone now. Anakin Skywalker is dead. She’s seen the holos, full of a dark shadow they call Darth Vader. The name never fooled her. 

He’s removed the mask for this. The mask would’ve scared her less than a shadow of the past. A face from her worst nightmares and best dreams. She could’ve lied to the mask, hidden from it. Anakin was her husband. She loved him. And maybe that was the mistake that led to the fall, but it happened. The last few months of the war proved that lying to Anakin was hard and made her- but this man is not Anakin. He’s a pretender. She forces her face into neutrality and focuses on the blank rectangle of the door.

Padmé won’t be leaving this room alive. Likely not even in one piece. Bad things happen to those who cross Vader, the other rebellion spies murmured. Stay away from him and eat this if you can’t. She never took their pills. She thought there’d be more time; time with a blaster or a knife or a long drop. But there wasn’t and there isn’t and so she has one last job to do. 

Politicians lie and cheat and hunger for power. Not her. She was in power to empower. To help those who couldn’t help themselves. So her final task in this world is to help the others, to keep the bases and identities and locations secret. She’ll do it with pride.

“Padmé.” It’s a gentle word, oh so gentle, and spoken in his voice. She wants to close her eyes and lose herself in memories of Coruscant between his campaigns and her meetings, together in her apartment. Gentle hands. Hands that held. But it’s not him and she can’t let herself be fooled. 

“Vader.” His eyes flash and she flinches, preparing for an abrupt and terrifying pressure on her throat. It doesn’t come.

“I know what happened the last time I saw you,” he says, in a sterner and less calm voice. Still his voice. Why does it have to be _his_ voice? “I didn’t mean it, okay? You were just confused. You’ve been confused. They all lied to you about me, and you got confused. But it’s going to be okay now. I’m here. You’re here. We’ll be okay.” The words shake her to the core. He’s insane. Mad. This isn’t just an interrogation. Not to him. Vader’s hand brushes her face and she flinches again, the touch soothing yet terrifying. 

“You’re insane, Vader. My husband is dead because you killed him, and I have nothing to say to you.” His eyes flash again and she’s still unharmed, though the abrupt halt to his hand indicates that she won’t be for long.

“Do you still believe them? Those senators who signed your petition? Delusional Obi-Wan? They lied, Padmé!” Vader tilts her face up, so she switches to staring at the ceiling. “Look at me. _Look_ at me!” The grip on her face tightens and she gives in, glancing to his face. His expression is so hopeful it hurts- but it’s not him. It never will be. That’s what she has to believe, because if it’s not true then nothing is. But it’s painful. To be reminded, looking into his eyes about what could’ve been and what was stolen. What she lost.

“It won’t be okay, Ana-” she catches herself, takes a breath. “It won’t be okay. The life we had, the life we wanted... you broke it. It’s gone. We can’t have it back.” He lets go of her chin and she braces again for horrible blackness. Vader still stays his hand. It’s terrifying, yet oddly impressive. He didn’t show this much restraint before.

“It was all for you. All of it. All of it to save you!” His voice is now a growl, the words spat out in a tone she’d only ever heard him use on people like Clovis. “I knew you were out there, that my heart was out there. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t focus, I couldn’t live until I saw you again. And now you refuse me! I sacrificed _everything_!”

“Did I ask you to?” She shouldn’t engage, but all the thoughts she’s had on lonely and quiet nights over the years come bubbling to the surface, waiting to be heard. Anger leaches into her own voice. “Did you ever stop and think about what I might have wanted? I spent my life trying to help people. I would’ve gladly given my life if it meant all the Jedi and all the other people you’ve hurt and killed could live. But I didn’t even have to! I’m alive! Miserable but alive. Trying to do all I can to bring down your Empire so I can pay back all the good that I owe. And if that means dying now, so be it.” The mask of rage on Vader’s features is relieving. Familiar from her nightmares. A face she can resist.

“Why can’t you see it my way?” Padmé closes her eyes. She won’t bait him anymore. Maybe there’s a spark in him, a little piece of Anakin. Enough to earn her a relatively painless death. “They’ve destroyed you.” 

“Losing them is what destroyed me.” The words sneak out before she can stop them. Her last task. Her final task. She locks down her mouth, resolves to silence. But it’s too late.

“Them?” A hand tugs on her hair, jolting her eyes open. She lets out a cry of pain, but says nothing else. “Who’s ‘them’, Padmé? Tell me!” His face is much too close. “Did you betray me? More than you already did, anyway. Did you take another lover?” Golden eyes burn right in front of hers and she shuts her eyes again. “I’ll kill them. Slowly. Slowly while you watch.”

A hand lands on her shoulder. Gentle. Much too gentle. “Who was it? Hmm? A rebel pilot? One of your senator friends? Maybe it was Bail Organa. I know he’s mixed up in your little insurgency.” Something tells him something about Bail. It makes her breath catch in her throat when he practically snarls. If he should go after Bail... Vader is the kind of monster who would make an example of the whole family. The whole palace. Especially his daughter. The daughter who is adopted. The daughter who-

Bail’s daughter is none of Padmé’s business. None at all. The last time she saw her was a year ago, the girl a chubby toddler running on unsteady legs. Happy and safe. It broke her heart- but why should it? No, the afternoon she spent in the Organa’s garden was pleasant because of the good friends gathered there. Pleasant. Pleasant until the little girl scraped her knee and buried her head in Breha’s skirts, not Padmé’s, until the- _Vader can read minds. Take this pill._ But she said no, so now she has to live with it. 

“Organa. Sidious would tell me to use that. Use this.” He squeezes her shoulder _hard_. “Adultery. A scandal. Topple his platform once and for all. But I think I’ll just kill him. His wife, too. An example for-”

“I didn’t fuck Bail Organa.” The pain in her voice must be evident. “He’s a friend and I don’t want you to kill him, that’s why I panicked.” The hand on her shoulder travels sideways and lands on her throat. Presses oh so gently. “It’s the truth. I’ve never lain with him.”

“There’s a connection. Don’t lie to me, I can sense it. I know you’re lying! A connection between you and him through... a...”

“He was there when I gave birth.” It’s not a lie. It covers the tracks. But it brings him so much closer to the truth. “He held my hand. I know it was painful for him because he and his wife- they can’t conceive. He’s a friend. A good friend. I promise I’ve never slept with him. I’ve never been with another man since I married.” The pressure relaxes almost immediately after the first sentence.

“When you...” His eyes are wide and the anger is bleeding away. But it’s not gone.

“Gave birth. Pregnant women are known to do that.” He lets go of her hair and she drops her head, staring back at the floor.

“But if you... I thought... where is she?” That sends Padmé’s heart rate through the roof but Vader is excellently distracted by this news.

“She?” Vader tilts his head, something close to excitement on his face.

“Is it a boy? I always told you it was a girl. Do you remember?” And she does, now that he mentions it. His hand had been on her stomach, smiles across their lips. It’s gone. It’s all gone. His face darkens for a moment. “Sidious told me that the baby died. That that’s why you were alive- I saw it wrong. He told me that I almost killed you and our baby died. But if you gave birth...” Padmé has to stop this before her heart runs away. She has no children. Not anymore.

She looks away. Closes her eyes. Everyone is safe now. If he looks to Bail, well, they always knew the risk. There’s a plan. The little girl will be safe. _Safer without me_. That’s what she told Bail, that’s what she told Sola. Safer. Tell them when they’re old enough to keep themselves safe. And so her heart lived in two pieces for three years. Two pieces and a sliver. Pieces for the children and a sliver for the father.

“Padmé.” The stern creeps back in, the anger. “Where is our child? Where is _my_ child?” Safer without you. Safe and happy. Her eyes shut tighter. She tries to picture something happy, but all of her happy is obscured by broken and shattered memories. 

“You said no man.” Vader is smarter than Anakin. Smarter and crueler. “What of women? I killed a curly little whelp of a rebellion pilot the other day. She screamed when she died. I stabbed her in the stomach. Was it her?” Ignore him. Ignore all of it. “You said since. What about before? One of your junior senator friends? That stupid Paolo kid you told me about?” He grabs her hair again and pulls so hard that she has to scream, but she still doesn’t open her eyes. “Sidious told me a few days before the Republic fell that you were sleeping with Obi-Wan. Was he it? Hmm? Did you let him fuck you in our bed? Or was it when he was a Padawan sent to protect you? Did you wrap his braid around your hand? Break his vows?”

She wants him to stop because it hurts, her hair and her mind, somehow. Tears are rolling down her face and she curses herself for her weakness. How can she protect others if she can’t protect herself?

“I killed him on Mustafar while you were running away. Away with my droids! I slipped and he hesitated and I stabbed him in the gut. He died slowly. He died begging like a coward, blood dripping from his lips. He was crying for his master. Pathetic.” Padmé whimpers. Her life had come at a terrible cost, something she had always known. But this... “He kissed you, didn’t he? Kissed you with his stupid, smirking lips. Did that shut him up, finally?”

“I never even looked at Obi-Wan. He was like your father!” Hatred twists his expression again.

“I bet that when he was with you, you thought of me. When he kissed you, you thought of this.” Vader leans forward and Padmé leans backward, fighting to keep the panic inside. But her has her hair and so he has her head and when his lips touch hers she wants to cry. She supposes she should count her blessings. It’s not an Anakin kiss. Not gentle and enthusiastic. Hard and biting and scary. She bites his lip but when he pulls back he just grins.

“I missed you. I missed you so much. And I missed that even more.” He plants a kiss on her cheek. “I know you never went near Obi-Wan. He was too afraid of himself to be with a woman. I embrace those emotions, Padmé. And so I defeated him. I deafeated all the Jedi. One day I’ll defeat Sidious and then I will rule.” His free hand trails down from her face and towards her breast. “I met one of your handmaids. I thought she was you for a moment. She had the cutest little scream.” She prays to her goddess for him to stop, for friends to save her, for a sudden tearing of her binds. “I wanted to take her but I held myself back. I knew that you were out here, waiting for me. Waiting for me to fix you.” She prays that he’s satisfied with touching her over her clothing, pinching and squeezing in a way that her husband never did. But now, looking back, she can see the Vader in Anakin. And, more alarmingly, she’s staring to see the Anakin in Vader.

“Please stop.” The words are quiet but he’s close enough to hear them. He leans in even closer, close enough for his lips to brush her ear.

“I don’t think I will.” A particularly rough squeeze, one that reminds her how easily his metal hand can crush. “Here is what will happen. I’m going to have you. I’m going to make you forget about any of the men you’ve had since me. And then you’re going to tell me where my daughter is. We’re going to go find her, or him, if it is a boy, and then I’m going to make whoever hides them pay. Then I’ll keep you close to me until you forget about your stupid rebellion and remember who we are. I’ll get rid of my master. And then we’ll be happy. And safe. And in charge.” 

“I don’t want you! I don’t want you to touch me or hold me or look at me or come near me! I don’t want you near my children and I don’t want you near their families! You’re not Anakin! Even on his worst days he would ask, and he wouldn’t push it if I said no. Anakin is dead, or mostly dead. And maybe Padmé Amidala is, too.” He releases her and steps back, smiling. Smiling. Why is he smiling?

“Child _ren_. Famil _ies_.” He laughs, a distorted and humorless sound. “I should’ve known. Should’ve felt it. How many were there? Or did you lie to me when you said there was no one else?” A stone punches through her gut. She’s failing, she’s missing his cues and falling for his games.

“I’ll never tell you anything. Not in a million years. They’re safe and far away from you. That’s all I’m going to say.” Yellow eyes blink, blink out of a face she no longer knows.

“I have ways, Padmé.” He steps across the room to a box, a box she had ignored before. “I think you might be right,” he says, pulling several evil-looking implements out. “My wife might be dead. Anakin Skywalker is. So if you won’t tell me about your children-our children, then you’re going to tell me about hers.” Padmé closes her eyes and prays for strength.

* * *

“Twins.” There is blood, but how much is irrelevant. The pain tells her that she’s close to gone, but Vader refuses to let her die. He’s not here, here in the room she’s been in for several days. Escape was laughable. Her attempts during trips to the refresher were as effective as a single battledroid against a Jedi. But she has to try. Every time. He’s gone. Far enough that he can’t hear her hoarse whispers. Hopefully. “We have beautiful children, Anakin. The boy has your eyes.” A slight smile touches her lips. “He’s like a little supernova. Never slows down.” She coughs and spits blood. Not long at all.

“The girl takes after both of us, in a way. People who know have said it’s eerie how much she looks like me. I stay away from her. But she’s determined. Started walking before she was a year old. Her father tells me she’s stubborn.” Something shifts in the corner of her vision, and she cuts off abruptly. Is it him? But it’s not. Maybe she’s finally dying.

“I know you’re not truly dead, so I can’t hope to see you again. But maybe you’ll remember one day. Maybe they’ll remind you, or maybe you’ll remind yourself. And then I can sleep.” Her vision has a blur that won’t go away. It’s blue-ish and tall. She ignores it.

“I still see you in my dreams. Sometimes we’re all together and sometimes you’re killing me. When I wake up I’ve lost everything no matter which.” Her voice drops low. So low that he couldn’t hear it unless he was inches away. She’s aware enough to know he’s not that close. “I miss you so much. I miss my babies. I miss my friends and my family. Maybe once I’m gone it’ll hurt less. Maybe I’ll dream forever. I would like that.” The blur is resolving steadily into a humanoid shape. It couldn’t be... could it?

“Your fight is over, Padmé.” She blinks, trying to send the hallucination away. But the stubborn and glowing Jedi refuses to leave. “Let go. The Force is ready for you.” 

“Is this a trick?” The words are too desperate for her liking. Obi-Wan shakes his head.

“Qui-Gon helped me away when I died. I held on to buy you time.” His expression darkens. “I’m sorry that he caught you. But you don’t need to stay anymore. You can leave with me.” 

“I’m not a Jedi. I don’t have your powers.” The world has shrunk to tiny seconds and this poorly constructed room.

“We all become the Force when we die. You won’t retain your identity like I did, but you can leave.” She lets out a shuddering breath.

“I left so much behind. So much unsaid.” 

“You did your job, Padmé. That’s all we truly can.” Padmé closes her eyes and tries not to cry. _Safe and happy. Safer without me._ And then she’s gone. It’s a relief.

Vader returns a few minutes later. Too late. He sees her slumped in the chair. Asleep, but for the blood crusted around her nose and mouth. He hates her. He loved her. He hated her. He loves her. 

The noises are loud inside of his head. He wants to scratch them out but he can’t. Her bonds are cut and her body is in his hands. She’s gone. Really gone. He’s angry and happy and relieved. He is too much. He fights himself. And for a moment, he is Anakin. He doesn’t see the glowing man behind him. The glowing man with sadness in his eyes. The man who sighs, shakes his head, and then disappears.

**Author's Note:**

> So that happened. I guess I needed to get all of this year’s shit out of my system. Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate, happy holidays to those who do other things, and have a great day to those who DGAF about December.


End file.
